Short course palliative radiotherapy of 20Gy in 5 fractions for advanced and incurable head and neck cancer: AIIMS study

End Stage Palliative Care of Head and Neck Cancer: a Case Study

“…Mohanti et al (2004) examined 505 patients with stage IV head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and they observed a uniform regimen of 20 Gy/5 fractions, once daily over l week. They reported good symptomatic relief (>50% for pain, 53% for dysphagia, 57% hoarseness, 47% otalgia, 76% for respiratory distress and 59% for cough).…”

Use of palliative radiotherapy trials for clinical biomarker development

“…Mohanti et al conducted an adaptive radiotherapy regime initiated with a standard 20 Gy/5# regime followed by completion to a biologically equivalent dose of 70 Gy in radiographic responders. Objective responses were documented in 189/505 patients with a significant improvement in median OS from 200 days (non-responders) to 400 days (responders) [51]. Thirty-three percent of the responders remained alive without disease at the end of their study.…”

Optimal management of the elderly patient with head and neck cancer: Issues regarding surgery, irradiation and chemotherapy

“…Inevitably, treatment interruption due to fatigue or to socioeconomical reasons is frequent in elderly patients [6,35] . Many hypofractionated palliative schedules for HN cancers have been proposed including 20 Gy in five fractions [35] , 30 Gy in five fractions [36] , 14 Gy in four fractions [37] , and 50 Gy in 16 fractions [38] . Nonetheless, increased late toxicity rates were still reported for those patients treated using a hypofractionated schedule [39] .…”